Amadou Gallo Fall has been appointed the president of the Basketball Africa League (BAL), the NBA’s planned effort on the continent which is scheduled to begin play in 2020.
The Senegalese native, who joined the NBA in January 2010, was a league vice president and managing director for Africa. He beings his new role immediately and will aid in the search for the successor to his prior managing director role in Africa.
Created in partnership with Fiba, the sport’s global governing body, the BAL is a new professional basketball league that showcases 12 teams from different leagues across Africa.
Clubs from Angola, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia will participate in the competition, which aims to grow the NBA brand – and commercial fortunes – in Africa, an area largely unexploited to date by US pro sports interests.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has described the league – the NBA’s first outside of North America – as “an important next step in our continued development of the game of basketball in Africa”.
